TAMPA, Fla. — After three slow offensive performances, all it took was seeing Texas on the other side to get South Carolina women’s basketball going again.

The Gamecocks played their best game of the NCAA Tournament so far, just as it did in the SEC Tournament against the Longhorns, winning a 74-57 blowout to advance to the National Championship for the second consecutive year and move within 40 minutes of a repeat.

South Carolina fell behind 10-2 off the opening tip, an alarming continuation of the offensive struggles from Birmingham. The Gamecocks were just 2-of-9 from the floor to start the night and went over four minutes without a made field goal while Texas built its early advantage. SEC Player of the Year Madison Booker had a lot to do with said hot start, scoring hitting her first three shots of the game all before the opening media timeout.

But with 3:25 to go in the first quarter, Booker picked up a foul trying to stop a Joyce Edwards drive. Just 21 seconds later, she got another one away from the basket guarding Tessa Johnson.

Two fouls on the SEC Player of the Year in under half a minute, and the entire complexion of the game changed.

When Booker went out, Texas led 12-7. When she entered just over eight minutes later, it was 27-26 Gamecocks.

But less than three minutes after re-joining the action, the game-changing play.

Once again, Booker had the Johnson match-up. This time in transition, as South Carolina rebounded a miss at the other end and launched a quick outlet pass. And roughly 30 feet from the basket, with Johnson’s back turned away from the play to haul in the pass, Booker nudged her from behind.

Clear contact, clear foul, not even an argument from a distraught Texas bench. And just like that, the best scoring threat for the Longhorns had to play the rest of the game on a tightrope.

And while the defense grew into the game, the slumbering offense finally woke up. In particular, Joyce Edwards. The freshman has struggled for most of the Tournament, but was assertive, comfortable and absolutely dominant in her first Final Four.

Edwards hit two buckets in quick succession to help get the sputtering offense back on track, had her usual quick first step back. She racked up a double-double before the end of the third quarter, and finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds along with six assists as the driving force of the offense.

That, plus a resurgent 3-point shooting, did more than enough. South Carolina made more than five 3-pointers for just the second time in its last 11 games, getting two early makes from Te-Hina Paopao, a critical Bree Hall shot on the first possession of the second half and a late Johnson dagger.

This was a blowout masquerading as a somewhat close game, a dominant performance for 35 minutes that only appeared close because of a sluggish opening five.

Any way you slice it, this was South Carolina’s best performance of the NCAA Tournament.

And now it has a chance to play one last game for a fourth National Championship on Sunday.

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